| Habib: | Where we stand on the claims and assets situation--as I understand it, there has been a proposal by your side with respect to those assets which have already been transferred, that there be a payment made to the United States government. I think the amount proposed by your Prime Minister was $17 million to cover that aspect--what we might call a gap--in the third country bank situation. We have stated that we will accept this proposal.
Secondly, there was the question of bonds. We have indicated that this is not a matter in which we intend to involve ourselves in any way as a government. I think that matter is resolved as a problem. The only remaining question is the technical one: some way of identifying the assets so that we are in accordance with our own legal requirements and not subject to litigation which would be directed toward the American government. I think there have been draft letters back and forth which have achieved a degree of understanding of the principles involved and now a decision is needed to proceed in the manner which meets the requirements of each of us. If you would like to proceed on that basis I don't imagine there would be too much difficulty. I consider from my point of view that the agreement in principle is still valid, and as the Secretary said this morning, once an agreement is reached, just the details need to be worked out. Does the Director agree with me that generally speaking we have an agreement in principle and it is only a matter of finding a mutually agreeable way of achieving these precise principles? |
| Lin: | With regard to claims and assets, on our part we have formally made a reply on June 14 this year to your memo dated December 22, 1973. As we understand it, if we proceed from the understanding reached between us in February 1973, a package settlement will be realized--in fact, could have been already realized--on the basis of political considerations. But in March last year, the United States side put forth a draft that created some side issues. The first of them refers to a phrase "designated or specially designated nationals" and the second required us to cover all the liabilities that occurred before 1949. With regard to this we made our new proposal last November. Judging from a memo that we |
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